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Press Release

ADL Welcomes Statement from UC Officials Rejecting Israel Divestment

New York, NY, May 12, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed its appreciation to University of California officials for their strong, unequivocal statement in which they announced their decision not to recommend to the university's board divestment from companies doing business with Israel.

Student organizations at the University of California recently put forward two bills calling for Israel divestment. Both resolutions were defeated.

"The university did the right thing by making clear that it is unfair to hold one country – Israel – to a different standard," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The divestment resolutions recently proposed at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego were unfair in their isolation of Israel and were a thinly veiled attempt to demonize and delegitimize Israel."

In the UC Statement on Divestment, President Mark G. Yudof and Board of Regents Chairman Russell Gould and Vice Chair Sherry L. Lansing made clear that "divestment needs to be undertaken with caution" and that "any discussion on divestment … must be robust and fair minded." They said the student resolutions failed that test.

In their statement, the university officials reaffirmed a 2005 Board of Regents policy that the university will only consider divestment when the U.S. government declares that a foreign regime is committing acts of genocide.

"We must take great care that no one organization or country is held to a different standard than any other," read the UC statement. "In the current resolutions voted on by the UC student organizations, the State of Israel and companies doing business with Israel have been the sole focus. This isolation of Israel among all countries of the world greatly disturbs us and is of grave concern to members of the Jewish community."

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.